Life and Death
by iq2two
Summary: Ten years after Claire's death, she's alive!
1. Prologue

_I deleted this story and changed a lot of it, but its back now, and I think some of the problems are fixed. I didn't change this chapter actually, just chapter 2._

_A/N: This story is set approximately during season 17, or around there. And for the purpose of this story, my other story Torture didn't happen, and for the purpose of that story thi story never happened. But this is the sequel to "Alive," or thats the prequel to this, actually._

_I don't own Law & Order._

"Jack!" It was the third time Connie had said his name, and he finally snapped out of his thoughts and looked away from the wall he'd been staring at, or past, and at her. "If you don't need me for anything else, I'm going to head home now."

"Fine," he said, still distracted.

She started to go, but stopped halfway to the door. "What were you thinking just now?" she asked out of curiosity.

"Oh, nothing," he replied nonchalantly, and she left.

Jack hadn't been thinking about nothing. He'd been thinking about Claire Kincaid. It had been over ten years since she'd died, but he'd never really gotten over her. There'd been other women since her, but he'd never felt about any of them the way he'd felt about Claire. He'd loved her. Hell, he still did.

He had no idea, would have been shocked to learn, that at that very moment, in some small town halfway across the country, Claire Kincaid was thinking about him.

TBC

_Please review! _


	2. Surprise

_I changed this a lot, I think Jack's reaction is somewhat better now._

_I still don't own Law & Order._

It was just past two in the morning when the knocking began, just loudly enough that Jack could not ignore it and go back to sleep. He dragged himself out of bed and answered the door.

It had been over ten years since he'd last seen the woman standing at his doorstep, and the years showed in the lines on her face, but even despite the utter shock he felt at seeing her alive, he would have known her had it been a hundred years. "Claire." The matter-of-fact way in which he said the name gave no hint of the stark astonishment he was feeling.

He stared at her, a confused jumble of thoughts racing through his mind. For over a decade he'd thought, known, that Claire was dead, yet here she was, standing at his doorstep in the middle of the night with not a word of explanation. Was he going insane? Was she a ghost? The silent figure standing in front of him did seem almost phantom-like, but he didn't believe in ghosts. Could it be someone else, a twin, a look-alike? But he knew it wasn't. It really was Claire, and she really was alive. Why didn't _she_ say something? She was the one who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere after being dead for ten years. But she just stood there, staring at him with as much apprehnsion as he was feeling. He wanted to ask her to explain, to say anything, but he couldn't find the words, much less put them together in an intelligible sentence.

They stood there staring at each other for an eternity of awkwardness, until the sudden loud clanging of a dumpster somewhere in the distance made Claire jump and glance over her shoulder. She finally spoke. "Can I come in?" her voice trembled with apprehension. "I- I can explain…" She glanced over her shoulder again, and it suddenly stuck Jack that on top of her anxiety about seeing him for the first time since her "death", Claire was also afraid of something.

Wordlessly, he swung the door open, and they both went inside. Claire began to lock and chain the door.

Words began to return to Jack. "You can explain???" he demanded incredulously. "You died, you let everyone think you were dead, you broke my heart and disappeared for ten years and never even let anyone know you were alive, and now you suddenly come back and say that you can _explain_???" He was yelling now.

Claire's eyes were brimming with tears as she turned to face him. "It was the only choice," she said quietly. "I love you," she added, and the tears began to spill down her face.

"I loved you- damn it, I still do, but don't you see that that makes it even worse?" He added slightly more quietly, "I thought you were dead. You let me think you were dead."

"If it's any comfort, as hard as it must have been for you to think I was dead, it was even harder for me to know you were alive and that I'd never be able to see you again."

"Yet here you are."

She nodded, but said nothing.

"So what have you been doing for the last ten years?" He was no longer yelling, but his tone was bitterly sarcastic.

"Running," she answered. Her voice was sad and weary, almost bitter, but she did not continue.

Jack looked a her pointedly, waiting for an explanation. He fervently hoped that whatever she had to say was an explanation, did excuse what she'd done, was enough for him to forgive her, but he didnt really think that possible.

She swallowed hard, and began. "Before I came to the D.A.'s office, I clerked for Judge Joel Thayer- and I had an affair with him. A few years later, when I was working with Ben Stone, he was arrested for threatening a woman's daughter to keep her from breaking up with him. Everything became public, I resigned, was censured, he took a plea, I got my job back… I thought it was all over.

"Then, it was the day before…" she clearly didn't know what to call _that_ day, and said, "The day before the execution. Judge Thayer's wife called me. He'd died a few weeks earlier. Heart attack, they'd thought then… Anyway, she gave me a letter he'd written to me. After several pages of disclaimer about how despite the things he'd done he wasn't a bad person, it told that he was involved with a… conspiracy. I don't know if that's the right word for it, really. Maybe a criminal organization would be a better term for it. A nationwide criminal organization made up of judges, some politicians, lawyers, some common criminals to do the dirty work, but mostly people powerful enough to get away with anything. And very well covered up, no one in it could be connected to anyone else, and if any of them was ever exposed, the ties were cut immediately. They'd killed Joel, of course."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was going to. But then the next day we watched the execution, and I just couldn't bring myself to say it then. And afterwards… I was going to tell you, but, well, I never got the chance."

"Do you still have the letter?"

"Oh, no. They took it off me when I was unconscious in the ambulance, after the car crash."

"Who are 'they'?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Can you believe it? They've been chasing me for ten years, and I still don't really know who they are."

"Why did you let everyone think you were dead?"

"They're… they would have killed me, you, anyone else who could have known anything. There was no other way I could have escaped them. I didn't escape them, ever, but at least I'm alive. I don't know if I was right. I don't know if," her voice caught in her throat, "I was right to come back."

"Why did you?"

She hesitated, and when she finally answered, Jack had the feeling that she was not telling him the whole truth. "I've had thirty-one names in the last ten years. I'd move somewhere, get a job, start to settle down, and then something would happen and I'd realize that they'd found us, or were about to, or just that I'd stayed in one place too long for safety. All I could ever think about was coming back here. I was as close as New Jersey once, but after what happened then… Anyway, yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night to a man holding a gun to my head, and it was shear luck that we got out of there, and I just realized that I couldn't run anymore."

He absorbed the explanation, but it was a single word of what she'd said that grabbed his attention. "'We'?"

"Jack," the tone of her voice jolted him, but not as much as the words that followed. "There's something else… I have- _we_ have- a daughter."

_Please review!_


	3. Jackie

I don't own Law & Order. The only character I own is their daughter.

He understood the words, but couldn't absorb the meaning behind them. They had a daughter. He and Claire had a daughter. He had a daughter who he'd never even knew existed, who had never met him, probably knew nothing about him. He thought of his other daughter, who he wasn't close to, but at least he knew she existed, and she knew him, somewhat. But Claire's daughter didn't, and he didn't know her, hadn't even know she was alive, much less anything about her. She'd be about nine. He had a nine year old daughter. Jack knew this should be very emotional, but somehow he couldn't seem to feel anything at all.

He sat there wordlessly, staring at the mother of his daughter and trying unsuccessfully to grapple with his thoughts. Finally, he asked so much more logically than he felt, or would have felt had he been able to feel, "Where is she?"

"In my hotel room. It's just a few blocks away."

He didn't remember how it happened, but soon he and Claire were walking down the street. She was talking, but he didn't hear a word she said.

They got to the hotel room and Claire opened the door. A little girl was sitting cross-legged on the bed, apparently doing homework. She looked just like Claire, down to the expression of concentration on her face he had seen so many times. She didn't look up as the door opened, but said, "Sorry, Mom, I couldn't fall asleep, it must be the time-" She stopped mid-sentence as she looked up and saw them.

The expression on her face was that extreme excitement that can usually only be seen on little kids at Christmas. "Daddy!!!!!!!!!!!!" she squealed as she jumped off the bed, ran over and hugged Jack.

Despite the overwhelmingness of it all, he hugged her back, and was surprised to realize that he was beginning to tear up. Finally, she let him go and began talking so fast he could barely understand her.

"Mom's told me all about you and I've always wanted to get to meet you and I'm really, really, really, really happy and I want to be just like you when I grow up and be a prosecutor and put bad guys in jail and I would have called you or visited you or something but then they would get us but its really awful and then after yesterday, or I guess it's the middle of the night so it's the day before yesterday, they got us, but we got away, but, well, yeah…" she finally trailed off.

Jack was even more nonplussed than before, but he could not help liking the exuberant child. His daughter, he reminded himself, and suddenly realized that he did not know her name.

So he asked her. Her eyes lit up again, and she glanced at Claire as if for permission, which was apparently given, because she said proudly, "My real name is Jackie."

TBC

This is short, but I had a hard time writing it. Please review, I have no idea whether it's any good. Constructive criticism is okay too.


	4. Bad Guys

_I still dont own Law & Order or any of the characters except Jackie._

"My real name is Jackie."

Jack glanced at Claire, somewhat surprised, but she remained silent. Jackie continued, "I've never gotten to use it though, because then they could find us. They find us anyway, but if we used our real names they'd find us faster and more sneakily and we wouldn't be able to get away and then they'd kill us, so we have to use fake names. My last fake name was, um, Ashley, and mom was… Laura. But since they got us we can't use them any more, and they're stupid names anyway." She said all of it matter-of-factly, as if using fake names and almost being killed was completely normal. Which it was, to her, Jack realized sadly.

"What happened, exactly, to make you come here?" he asked.

The question had really been for Claire, but it was Jackie who answered. "I was in a play at school, and they put my picture in the newspaper. It was stupid really, because it was just a stupid Christmas play and I was just in the chorus, but they just randomly happened to put a picture of the section of the chorus that I was in on the front page of the newspaper. So of course we were leaving, and we were about to, but then mom saw a guy with a rifle watching the house so we were going to leave when we got the chance, because if we went out then he'd shoot us, obviously, only later, I'd just gone to bed, only I couldn't fall asleep because of everything, and these two scary guys broke my window and came in. So I started screaming and throwing stuff at them and kicking and biting and stuff but they got me, and they tied me up, and then one of them stayed there and the other one went to get mom. And he was going to kill me, the only reason they didn't was in case they couldn't find mom. So I was yelling at him and stuff and I told him my mom was going to kill them, but he just laughed at me and said that his friend had my mom tied up in the other room and she couldn't do anything, and then he said some mean stuff. And I was really scared and everything since I thought he was about to kill me, but I was trying not to let him know how scared I was, and I wasn't really thinking straight, so I'm like, "Well then my dad's going to get you." And then he said some mean stuff about me not having a dad, and I just blurted out, "I do too and my dad's a prosecutor in New York and he's going to put you in jail for the rest of your life. And then the guy got sort-of excited or anxious or something, I don't know, but he started yelling for the other guy, and then he left me there tied up and went in the other room, I guess to talk to the other guy. So I managed to get out of the ropes he tied me up with, and I snuck out of the room and looked in the door of the other room and they were both there with mom, and she was tied up like I had been. So I couldn't go in there or anything, because they would have gotten me again, so I went into the kitchen and got some matches and stated lighting stuff on fire until the house was burning. And then I waited for them to notice it and they did and then one of them's like, "Hey, lets just leave the bitches to burn to death and get the hell out of here." Sorry, but that's what they said. So they left, and I untied mom, and we got out of there, and we hid in the neighbor's bushes because all the fire trucks and stuff were outside, and the whole house burned down, and I told mom what happened and we talked about it and we realized they could find you. I'm sorry."

Jack was silent when she finished. Her narrative was disturbing on several levels. The words themselves, what had happened, how close they had been to being killed. The way Jackie told it- matter-of-factly, even proudly, yet her voice, and moreover, her attitude, still that of a child. The way she apologized for putting him in danger, when somehow he felt that he should be apologizing, although he wasn't even sure what for.

TBC

_Please review._


	5. What Now?

_I don't own Law & Order._

Jackie went to bed soon; despite her excitement, she was a nine-year-old and it was almost four in the morning. Just a few minutes after hugging both of her parents goodnight, she was fast asleep on one of the hotel beds.

Jack and Claire sat on the other bed, saying nothing at first so Jackie could go back to sleep, and then because neither of them knew what to say.

"How have you been, Jack?" Claire asked after a little while.

"Fine," he replied automatically, then thought about it and realized that for the most part, it was true. "You?"

The rather bitter smile she gave was out of character, or at least out of character for the Claire he had know ten years ago. "I'm alive," she said finally, and although she didn't say it, the word "barely" hung in the air. Claire had changed, Jack noticed, or maybe had noticed earlier but didn't let himself realize until then. She had used to be so idealistic, not naïve, but someone who saw the good in life, believed the world could change for the better. An optimist.

"Claire, what happened to you?" he asked spontaneously, but although he hadn't intended to say the words, he was glad he had.

She knew what he meant, and didn't pretend otherwise. "Life happened," she said with a sad smile.

Jack didn't quite know what to say to that, and they were silent again. He thought that it was ironic that despite their being so many things he'd wished he could have told her, they were having such a hard time talking.

"So how's witness protection?" he asked finally.

She snorted. "Do you remember me being a _witness_?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not in witness protection. I don't have anything to offer them, and given who we're dealing with, I wouldn't trust them to keep me safe even if they _were _offering. It's not that hard to get a fake ID, find some minimum wage job where they don't look to carefully at your credentials, and disappear whenever they're getting close, or just when we've been too long in one place."

"What are you going to do now?"

"That's the question, isn't it? Normally I'd get new ID, enroll Jackie in school, find a job, a place to live… But I can't do that now."

"Why don't you announce that you're alive? They clearly know."

She shook her head. "It's not that simple. The way it's set up, its very loosely organized. None of them really know who else is in it, except at most two others. That's why even when someone finds, say, a corrupt judge, which has happened, it doesn't bring down the whole thing. Right now there's a few people in it looking for me, and all the minor criminals they hire who don't really know anything about it. But if I announced that I was alive, every single person in any way involved with it would be looking for me, and I would be dead within a few hours. Don't underestimate them."

Although Jack nodded, he was underestimating them.

TBC

_I actually already have the next part written for once, so I will post it once I get some reviews. :-) And it is... explosive._


	6. Boom!

_I don't own Law & Order._

They continued to talk about what she should do, but had not came up with anything by 5:22 in the morning, when Jack's pager went off.

It was an emergency message from Arthur Branch. Jack used the hotel phone to call his boss.

"I assume by the fact that you have access to a phone that you're not buried under all that debris, but where in blazes are you?" the District Attorney demanded.

"What are you talking about, Arthur?" Jack asked, bewildered.

"Turn on the TV."

Jack flipped on the hotel room's small television and changed the channel from cartoon network to one of the major news stations. A reporter was standing in front of what appeared to be the scene of an explosion. The ground was littered with mounds of debris, broken wood and fallen plaster and pieces of furniture and other things unrecognizable in the dark, despite the bright lights of the firefighters and news stations. The reporter was saying, "No bodies have been found so far, and rumor is that Executive Assistant Attorney Jack McCoy may not have been home during the blast, although his current location, assuming he's not under there," the man gestured behind him, "is unknown. Well keep you updated about this horrible tragedy. Now back to Patti, who will tell you about a very special cat with a secret talent…"

"Jack?" Arthur's voice on the phone jolted him out of his utter shock.

"I'm fine, Arthur. I wasn't home." To his surprise, his voice sounded almost normal.

"Well, where are you??" Arthur demanded.

"I'm… with a friend."

"I see." Jack could almost see his boss's raised eyebrows. "On second thought, I don't want to know. Let's try to keep your personal life out of the press. I'll just say that you're safe and we have no comment, and you don't say anything to the media at all."

Jack agreed, and Arthur asked, "Do you have any idea who might have done this?"  
He did, but he said nothing, and the silence dragged on. Finally, Jack said, "I'm not going to be coming in to work today. I'll talk to you later, Arthur," and hung up the phone.

He turned to Claire. "It was them, wasn't it?" Jack asked her, although it wasn't really a question.

She nodded sadly.

TBC

_I know its short, as pretty much all the chapters in this story have been so far. I am sorry about that, but they just keep end up being short, and the story is going pretty slowly anyway. Anyway, a part I'm excited about is finally coming up in about two chapters, so maybe then I'll get inspired and it'll start going more smoothly._

_Speaking of inspiration, reviews always elp, so please review, and thank you to everyone who has._


	7. Motive

I dont own Law & Order.

Jack's initial instinct was to go back there, talk to the police, do whatever he could to help catch whoever did it. Claire talked him out of that.

"By now they know they didn't kill you, if that was there intention. That you'd go back there when you heard is obvious, they're probably waiting for you. There's nothing you can tell the police that can help, and even if they do catch whoever did it, it'll just mean it's a different petty criminal who plants the next bomb, or shoots at you, or whatever. It won't make you safe."

"I'm not going to go into hiding!" Jack protested.

"You know, I don't think you need to," Claire told him thoughtfully. "They're after me because I know about them, and they know that. But you don't know anything about them, or didn't. They have no reason to kill you." She paused, then said, "They weren't trying to kill you. They're trying to use you to draw me out."

"Maybe they think you told me."

Claire shook her head. "Anybody who knows anything about you would know that if you had even a suspicion about something like this, there's no way you'd sit on it for ten years."

That was true, but he wasn't satisfied. "Maybe they think you've told me since then, or know you have."

"If they followed me, or were watching your place?" She considered briefly, then shook her head. "No. I was careful about being followed, and believe me, I have enough experience by now to know. They could have been watching your house, but if they were, they would have seen you leave, and that supports them not trying to kill you."

He thought about it, and finally had to agree. "What now?"

"I'm going to enroll Jackie in school, find a place to live, take it one day at a time."

"Stay with me," Jack said.

"In case you don't remember, you don't have a house right now."

He had forgotten for a second, actually. "Right. Well, I'll find a new place soon, and until then I'll stay in a hotel. Stay with me anyway," he offered.

Claire hesitated, then asked reluctantly, "There isn't… anyone else?"

"No," he told her.

"Okay then."

TBC

Okay, this is like the filler chapter of all filler chapters, but I am working on the next one right now, and I actually know exactly what to write and am not at all stuck. And its a long one. So I should have it up within a few hours. I just didnt want to include this one with it because they're pretty seperate.


	8. New School

I don't own Law & Order, but I do actually own all the characters in this chapter.

Jackie liked starting at a new school. She'd done it enough times that she was used to it, and she'd never been shy. And today was even better than ever because she actually got to use her real name. Well, her real first name, at least. She was Jackie Clark. And, her mom and dad dropped her off at school. It was the best day of her life.

She got there about fifteen minutes before school started, and went to the office and found out her room number. Room 34, Mrs. Miller's class. She then went to the yard where the other kids were playing.

She was happy to see that there were tetherball poles, tetherball had always been her favorite game. Apparently the other kids liked it too, because there were short lines behind all three tetherball poles. Jackie got in line behind a girl who looked her age.

"Hi, I'm Jackie. Today's my first day here," she introduced herself.

"I'm Katie," the other girl said.

"Is this a good school?" Jackie asked.

Katie shrugged. "I guess. I've never went to any other school. I have Mrs. Miller this year, she's a good teacher. I hated my teacher last year, but most of the teachers are okay."

"I have Mrs. Miller too," Jackie said. The tetherball wrapped around the pole, the girl in front of Katie replaced the boy who had just lost, and the line moved up.

"Oh, cool. I'll show you where the class is. It's like, impossible to find. You have to go up these stairs, and then down these other stairs, and make some turns and stuff and then go up some more stairs. I even got lost on the first day of school this year."

One of the girls playing tetherball lost, and Katie took her place. Jackie watched them play. They were both good, and the game went on forever, with neither of them being able to wrap the rope more than two turns around the pole. Finally, the bell rang.

Katie was right, room 34 was impossible to find, and Jackie would have been lost without her help. There was an empty seat diagonal from Katie, so Jackie sat there. The first few hours of class weren't particularly interesting- they factored prime numbers, which Jackie had already learned at the last school she was at. However, Mrs. Miller wasn't very strict, and the noise level in the classroom was fairly loud, so she spent most of the class chatting with Katie. By recess, they were friends.

At recess, they made straight for the tetherball courts, and managed to get to one of them before anyone else. They played until Jackie won. She started to go to the back o the line, but Katie said, "I'm bored of tetherball. Let's go, you should meet my friends."

Katie introduced Jackie to two other girls, Stephanie and Ana, and they talked about Ana's dog, who apparently had just had puppies. "That's so cool, that you got to see your dog have puppies!" Katie cooed. "I'm going to be a vet when I grow up," she told Jackie.

"Cool. I'm going to be a lawyer," Jackie told her.

At lunch, they all ate together, and Ana invited all of them over to see her new puppies. Katie lent Jackie her phone to call her parents to see if she could go.

"Hi mom… I really like school so far, I made some friends… Yeah, well I was wondering if I could go over my friend's house after school? I can walk with them… Yes, thank you, I love you, bye."

After school, Jackie and her new friends began to walk to Ana's house. "It's only like, eight blocks," Ana told her. Jackie was enjoying herself, seeing a new place and talking with her new friends. In fact, she was having such a good time, she was a bit less observant than she usually was, less wary than she knew she should be.

She didn't even notice the white van until it had pulled up alongside them and the man with the gun jumped out and grabbed her.

TBC

I actually had planned to make it loner, and have started what is now the next chapter, but I decided to seperate it into two chapters since all the other chapters are so short, and this just seemed like a place that called for a chapter break. But I'm working on the next chapter, I'll have it finished soon, and I'll post it once I get a couple reviews.


	9. Police

I don't own Law & Order or most of the characters in this chapter. Yes, that's a hint that there are more characters from Law & Order in this chapter. :-)

Ana, Katie, and Stephanie screamed and ran away. Despite the fact that Jackie was the one who had actually been grabbed, she was less scared than they were; after all, having bad guys after her was nothing new to her. Even so, she knew perfectly well that this guy wanted to kill her, and she was terrified at the thought. She tried to scream, but his hand was clamped tightly over her mouth as he tried to pull her into the van. Jackie knew better than that, though. Once he got her in the van, he was powerless, she had to escape now. She began to wriggle and kick, then bit his hand, hard. He swore, and let go of her with that hand for an instant. Although he still had her with the other hand, she could move a little now, so she turned and kicked him as hard as she could in the place where he would least want to be kicked. He screamed, and she ran.

Jackie ran around a corner and doubled back to the school, not slowing until she was in the office. The secretary stared at her.

Jackie thought quickly. Normally, had this happened to her, she would not have called the police. But Katie, Stephanie, and Ana had all seen him grab her, and at least one of them had surely called the police. And she really didn't want to just tell her mom and disappear to somewhere far away. So, against her instincts, she told the secretary, "A man just tried to kidnap me! Call 911!"

After the secretary called the police, and asked Jackie several times if she was sure she was okay, she asked if she wanted to call her parents.

Jackie considered it, but decided not to. They wouldn't be worried yet, they thought she was at her friend's house. And if she did call her mom, she might end up in Oklahoma or somewhere being Kelly Smith or some other name that wasn't hers. "I don't remember the number," she lied to the secretary.

"Well, I'm sure we have it on file. I'll look it up."

"No, that was our old phone number," Jackie said. Actually, the number her mom had given the school was entirely made up, but she wasn't telling the secretary that.

"I guess I can let the police deal with it when they get here," the secretary told her finally.

They arrived soon. "I'm Detective Green and this is my partner Detective Cassady," the man introduced them. "We're here about the attempted kidnapping."

"Can I see your badges?" Jackie requested. _They_ could quite easily have to people pretend to be police. Actually, the could quite easily have two people who actually were police, but she wanted to make sure anyway.

The detectives looked somewhat amused, but showed her their badges. "It says 'homicide.'" Jackie noticed. "I'm not dead!"

"We know you're not, sweetheart, but this could be involved with another kidnapping in which the victim was found dead," Detective Cassady told her.

"Oh, okay," Jackie said, although she was sure that it was not related to the other kidnapping. Actually, she realized, it could be, if the people who wanted to get her had hired whoever had committed the other kidnapping. Which was actually fairly likely, once she thought about it.

"Are your parents on the way here?" Detective Green asked.

"She doesn't remember their phone number," the secretary broke in.

"You Don't know your phone number?" Detective Cassady asked Jackie, sounding surprised.

"I just moved here. it's a new phone number. And the one my mom gave the school is our old phone number."

"What are your parents' names?" Detective Cassady asked.

Jackie thought for a moment. She didn't know what name her mom was using, and wasn't going to give the real one. And she didn't think she should say who her dad was. "I don't remember," she told them.

"You don't remember your parents' names?" the detective asked, surprised. "Do you live with them?"

"I live with my mom."

"And you don't remember her name? Sweetie, did you hurt your head at all during the attempted kidnapping?"

"No, I just don't use my mom's name. I call her mom, Jackie lied. She knew she sounded like an idiot, but it didn't matter.

"What about when you need to fill stuff out with your mom's name? What do you write?"

"Um, I don't know."

"Well, what's your last name?"

"Clark," Jackie told them.

They looked at each other, and Jackie knew they were thinking the name was not unique enough to be much help.

Finally, Detective Green said, "Well, why don't we take you down to the precinct while we try to fid your parents, and you can tell us what happened there."

"Okay," Jackie agreed. She didn't think they worked for the bad guys, and she didn't really have much of a choice.

Jackie had never been in a police car before, and thought it was sort-of interesting. She had to sit in the back part, where suspect sit, since the detectives were sitting in front, but they were careful to make it clear to her that she wasn't in any trouble. She knew that, she wasn't stupid, but since they already thought she was, because she didn't know her parents' names, she decided to let them continue to think so.

At the precinct, they didn't take her to an interrogation room but let her sit at one of the detective's desks- to make her more comfortable, she guessed. She proceeded to tell them in detail everything that happened, and answered all their questions to the best of her ability.

Until they started to ask her about her parents, of course, At that point, she started to play dumb again. She didn't remember their names, she didn't remember where she lived, she didn't remember her phone number. When they asked her how she'd been planning to get home from her friend's house, she answered, "Uh, I don't know."

The detectives were clearly frustrated. After a while, Detective Cassady left and came back with another woman, who had a very commanding air, but seemed nice. "This is Lieutenant Van Buren," she told Jackie. The lieutenant seemed to inspect Jackie very closely, almost suspiciously.

Detective Green told the lieutenant, "She doesn't know her parents' names, her phone number, or address."

"They haven't reported her missing?"

"They think I'm at my friend's house," Jackie said.

"Do you know your friend's name or phone number? Maybe her parents have your phone number."

"No, I just met my friends today. I just moved here. Today was my first day at school here."

"How old are you?"

"Nine."

"And you don't know your mom's name?"

"No, sorry."

Lieutenant Van Buren looked at Jackie for a minute, then asked, "Your mom's name wouldn't happen to be Claire, would it?"

Jackie froze. "No," she said quickly, panickedly. "No!" Her mind was racing. This woman knew who her mom was. She had to be one of the people trying to kill them. Jackie's instincts must have been wrong. "Uh, I have to go to the bathroom," she said, and ran across the police station.

She did go into the bathroom, just in case anyone was watching. When she came out, she looked around to make sure no one was watching her, then went to the pay phone next to the bathroom, put in some money, and dialed the phone number of the hotel where her mom was staying.

It was her dad who answered. "Dad? It's me, Jackie. I'm at the police station. Someone tried to kidnap me…. I'm fine… Really, I'm fine. He grabbed me and I kicked him in the balls and ran away… I went back to the school and called the police… No, I told them I didn't know the number and that I forgot my parents' names…" She thought about asking to talk to her mom, but changed her mind. "Dad, can you come get me? Thank you, I'll see you in a little while."

Not all the police here could be in on it, and they wouldn't do anything to her in front of any who weren't. They were probably keeping her here hoping to use her as a trap for her mom. She could just stay there, make sure not to let them take her anywhere else, and wait for her dad to come get her. She went back over to the detectives. Lieutenant Van Buren was still there, waiting for her.

"Is your mom's last name the same as yours?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

"What about your dad's?"

"Uh, I don't know."

"Do you think your mom's last name, or maybe her maiden name, could be 'Kincaid?'"

"No, that doesn't sound familiar," Jackie lied. "Why?"

"You're the spitting image of someone I used to know."

Jackie pondered that, wondering whether it was just an excuse, or whether Lieutenant Van Buren maybe she really had known her mom, and wasn't out to kill her after all. It didn't really matter. She wasn't going to tell any more than she had. "Can you tell me about the case you think might have been the same kidnapper?" she asked, both to change the subject and because she wanted to know.

"I don't think you really want to know about that," Detective Green said.

"Yes, I do! I already know they're dead and I'm not scared of stuff like that or anything."

Detective Green relented, somewhat. "The girl's name was Jennifer Flores. She was abut your age. She was kidnapped by a man in a white truck a few miles away from your school."

"And she was killed?" Jackie asked.

"Yes."

"What happened? How do you know she was killed, did you find her body?" Jackie wanted the whole story, not the G-rated version.

"Someone found her body in a dumpster two days later," he admitted.

"What had happened to her?" Jackie asked.

She didn't find out whether or not Detective Green would have told her, because just then, Jack McCoy walked in. Jackie didn't run up to him because she wasn't sure whether she should let people know that he was her dad. She decided to see what he did and follow his lead.

TBC

I actually like this chapter, I've been planning some of this fpr a while and am finally not stuck with this story! I'm working on the next part, I'm very happy becase it is now winter break, so I have tim to write, and I am at a part of the story where I can actually work on it without my mind going blank every couple of paragraphs! Please review!


	10. Suspicion

_I don't own Law & Order._

Jack had thought of spending the day he took off of work finding a new place to live, or maybe finding the people who were trying to kill Claire- despite her warning not to underestimate them, and the subsequent proof of that in the explosion of his house, despite the fact that Claire had spent ten years running from them, he still believed that he could find them, throw them in jail for anything he could, from murder to unpaid parking tickets, find a way to keep them there, and live happily ever after. Logically, he knew how unlikely it was that he could do so, but in his heart, he expected this not only to end, and soon, but with a happy ending. And he'd said Claire had been an idealist.

His plans hadn't changed, but he hadn't gotten anything done that day. He was with Claire for the first time in years, alone, in a hotel room…

It was about five-thirty when the phone rang. Jack got up and answered it. It was Jackie. She told him that someone had tried to kidnap her, but she was fine and at the police station. To his surprise, she was with the detectives he worked with. He agreed to come get her.

He told Claire what Jackie had said, and they agreed that it would be a very bad idea for her to show up at the precinct, so he went to get his daughter.

"I'm here to get Jackie Clark," Jack told the detectives when he arrived. "I'm a friend of her family."

The detectives looked surprised, but Lieutenant Van Buren's expression was something other than surprise. "Counselor, can I talk to you in private?" she asked, but from her tone, it was not really optional. They went into her office.

"What the hell is going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"That little girl. Who is she?"

"Her mother's a friend of mine," Jack told her, refusing to be intimidated by her stare, which seemed to look right into him.

She said nothing for a few seconds, just looked at him. Finally she repeated, "A _friend_." Her tone made it clear that she didn't believe it. She waited for another few seconds, then said, "Jack, I knew Claire too."

Jack didn't say anything, and the silence dragged on. So she had noticed the resemblance. He wasn't really surprised, he'd wondered whether she would. And he wondered how much she knew. Claire hadn't been able to talk to him after the execution, but she had talked to Anita Van Buren. He wondered if Claire had said anything then, or if Anita now knew anything beyond that a little girl who looked like Claire had almost been kidnapped.

"Knew," he said finally.

"What?" she asked.

"You said you knew Claire. Knew, or know?"

She looked at him, shocked by the question. "Jack, Claire's dead."

He said nothing.

"Claire's dead," Anita repeated. "Isn't she?"

Jack did not reply, just pushed open the door of her office, took his daughter, and left.

TBC

Please review. I'm working on the next chapter and will probably post it today or tommorow.


	11. Investigation

_For anyone who was confused by chapter 11 before, I accidentially added the wrong document one from my other story, Torture._

_I don't own Law & Order._

"What was that about?" Detective Cassady asked her lieutenant.

Anita didn't answer. Neither of her detectives had been there long enough to have known Claire, and if she told them her suspicions she knew they would try to convince her it was just a girl who happened to look like someone she used to know. And there wouldn't be any logical response- what did she think was going on. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Claire had been dead for ten years. Her question to Jack resounded in her head. _Claire's dead. Isn't she?_

"What's going on with McCoy?" Nina asked. "First his house blew up, now he's acting mysterious about this… He didn't tell you who the girl's mom is, did he?"

"No," Anita told her. Nina was right, she realized, something was going on. And she was going to find out what it was.

She tried calling Jack's cell phone, but it was off. She tried his office, but Connie said he'd taken the day off. Since his home no longer existed, there was no way to try to contact him there, and she didn't know where he was staying. She wished that she'd thought to follow him when he left.

How had he known to come there in the first place? Jackie's mom, whoever she was, couldn't have told him, since she hadn't know- or, Anita was beginning to think, pretended she hadn't know- the phone number. And they hadn't publicized the fact that she was there yet, they'd still been hoping her parents would worry when she didn't get home and call the police, or the school, or somehow find out where she was.

Could they have called the school and been told that the police had taken her? Anita picked up the phone, called Jackie's school, and asked the secretary whether anyone had called about Jackie. No one had.

That left Jackie contacting someone herself. She'd been with the detectives the whole time, except when she went to use the bathroom. When she'd freaked out after being asked about Claire. The more Anita thought about it, the more sure she was that Jackie knew a lot more than she'd told them.

There was a payphone next to the bathroom, and as soon as she remembered that she knew what had happened. She called the phone company and got the LUDS from the payphone.

Sure enough, a call had been made right about the time Jackie went to the bathroom. She looked up the number in a cross-directory. It was a hotel, and the extension dialed had been to one of the rooms.

"I'll be back in a few hours," she told the detectives.

"Where are you going?"

She left without answering.

She got to the hotel, flashed her badge to the desk clerk- it was an official investigation, she was investigating a kidnapping, she told herself- and asked who room 205, the room that belonged to the extension that had been dialed from the payphone, was registered to.

"Hold on a sec," the clerk told her, flipping through the register. "Uh…" she squinted at the book. "Can you read that?" she asked, showing Anta the book. The name next to room 205 was scrawled so sloppily that it could have been quite literally anything. Somehow, Anita doubted the illegibility of the handwriting was accidental.

Well, it wasn't like she had any doubt as to what room she was looking for, although it would have been nice to have some idea of what to expect when she got there. And the suspicious registration only added to her assurance that something was up.

She paced outside of room 205, wondering how to proceed. Should she just knock on the door, should she pull out her gun, should she just wait until someone came out, should she call for back-up? No, she decided, and knocked on the door.

After a few seconds it was opened by Jack McCoy. Behind him, through the crack in the door, she could see Jackie sitting on the bed. When the little girl saw Anita, she screamed and ran across the room, out of the lieutenant's frame of view.

She turned her attention back to Jack, who did not appear happy to see her. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded, but she ignored him, her mind on the occupants of the hotel room. Jack McCoy, a little girl named, possibly, Jackie Clark, and, she was sure, one other. Her mind flashed back to the question Jack had asked earlier. "You said you knew Claire. Knew, or know?"

"Claire's dead," Anita had answered. "Isn't she?"

Now she asked the exact opposite of the question. "Claire isn't dead, is she?"

Jack started to close the door in her face, but Anita was faster. She pushed past him, into the hotel room.

TBC

_Please review, and thank you so much to everyone who has so far, they really inspire me!_


	12. Questions

_I don't own Law & Order._

Despite the fact that Anita had half expected to see Claire, actually seeing her after ten years of believing she was dead was still a shock. She was sitting on one of the hotel beds, hugging her daughter, who seemed terrified. Claire's expression was hard to read, a combination of worry, relief, and something else- nostalgia?

"It's okay, sweetheart," Anita could just barely hear Claire say softly to Jackie. "She's not one of them."

Anita wondered what the hell was going on. Claire wasn't dead, she had a daughter, who had almost been kidnapped, Jack McCoy's house had blown up, and they were all clearly afraid of something.

Jack looked like he wanted to kick her out of the room, but instead followed her inside and locked the door.

"So you're alive," Anita said to Claire. It was stating the obvious, of course, but she had to say something.

Claire started to say something, but Jackie interrupted. "Mom, she recognized me, she's one of them."

"No, I used to know her."

"Oh." The little girl relaxed visibly, and Anita realized how tense she had been.

"Who did you think I was one of?" Anita asked.

"It's a long story," Claire said slowly, as if trying to decide what to say.

"It should be! You've let everyone think you were dead, and now you're back with a daughter who was almost kidnapped and you," she turned to Jack, "apparently know about it, and your house blew up. What the hell is going on?"

"I only found out last night- this morning," Jack said.

"I'm not sure if I should tell you," Claire said. "You have to promise that you won't tell anyone I'm alive, no matter what. Even if it relates to an investigation, even if they threaten you, even if they threaten your kids- no matter what."

Anita wasn't sure if she could make that promise. "Why? Why is it so important? What are you worried would happen if I did tell someone?"

"You can't tell anyone! Last time someone recognized my mom, he was killed." Jackie said.

Claire visibly winced. She looked down for a few seconds, then said quietly, "That was Lennie."

"What?" It was Jack who uttered the startled exclamation, although Anita felt the same way. Apparently Claire hadn't mentioned that part to him yet either.

She didn't look at any of them. "We were living in New Jersey. My name was, um, Angela Brown. I was working at a gas station. One day Lennie was canvassing gas stations in the area, and he came in. He recognized me, of course." She paused, remembering, and her eyes began to well up. "I had to deny who I was, but of course he didn't believe me. He followed me home. He met Jackie, we talked for a few minutes, he promised not to tell anyone. Then me and Jackie moved and changed our names. About a week later I read in the newspaper that he was dead." Only now did she look up. "I'm so sorry," she said, her voice brimming with emotion, the words clearly heartfelt, although it wasn't clear who she was addressing.

"How do you know his death had anything to do with you?" Anita asked, not because she doubted it, but to get Claire to connect the dots of her story.

"I don't know, really," Claire admitted. "But it was them. It's too much of a coincidence, and one of them referred to it, later."

"Who?" Anita asked.

It was Jackie who answered, not very helpfully. "The bad guys. The ones who are trying to kill us!" It was said with an implied "Duh!"

Since Claire was not forthcoming with answers, Anita turned her powers of interrogation on Jackie. "Who are they? Why do they want to kill you?"

"There're like, a lot of them. Mostly really powerful people like judges and stuff, and then the people they hire or blackmail or whatever. As for why, its because they're evil, and they don't want people to find out about them. And we can't just like, put them in jail or something because there're too many of them and they don't all know about each other or anything, so even when one of them gets arrested or something, it doesn't matter. So even if you arrest the guy who tried to kidnap me, or the guys who tried to kill us a couple days ago, or the guy who blew up my dad's house, then those people will be in jail but you still wont be able to get the real bad guys. It sucks."

At hearing Jackie refer to Jack as her dad, Anita froze in shock, although she realized she shouldn't be so surprised. Still, it hadn't occurred to her that Jack McCoy was Jackie's father, despite her name, and, now that she thought of it, a certain similarity in attitude. Had she thought about who Jackie's dad was she would have realized, she was sure, but she hadn't thought about it. Well, she had enough on her mind already.

Such as, why exactly Claire had been pretending to be dead for the last ten years. Although Jackie's information was somewhat illuminating, she still hadn't heard how the "bad guys" had anything to do with Claire. She was about to press for more information when her cell phone rang.

"Van Buren… Yes?… Good… Get a warrant for his arrest… I'll meet you there." She hung up, and announced, "They found the man who tried to kidnap Jackie."

TBC

_Please review!_

_For Claire's encounter with Lennie, read my story "Alive."_


	13. Arraignment

_I still don't own Law & Order._

"Docket 32905, People v. Henry Neal, one count murder in the first degree, two counts attempted kidnapping in the first degree."

Connie glanced at the defendant, a criminal who had raped and murdered a little girl and tried to kidnap two others including one who, according to the detectives, had some connection to Jack. He'd been caught in the act of trying to kidnap his third victim, and had confessed to the girl he'd killed. This should be easy, she thought.

"Mr. Neal, how do you plead?" asked Judge Jamie Ross.

His lawyer, a young woman who looked barely out of law school, jumped in. "Your Honor, I'm Sienna Drake for the defense. My client pleads not guilty."

"Your Honor, the People ask for remand. Henry Neal is a dangerous predator who was caught in the act of one of the kidnappings, and confessed to the murder," Connie said, thinking that any judge would have to be crazy to grant bail in this case.

"The confession was coerced, and as for being caught in the act, my client was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

To Connie's surprise, Judge Ross did not answer immediately, and she looked worried. Connie assumed she must be concerned about some other case, or her personal life. This arraignment was easy. There was no reason whatsoever to grant bail. She had to remand the defendant.

Judge Ross was silent for a long time, before she said, "I find the defense's reasons compelling. I'm releasing the defendant on his own recognizance."

Connie was shocked, and even the defense lawyer looked surprised, although she quickly hid it and said, "Thank you, your Honor."

"This is ridiculous!" Connie cried. "He's a child murderer and you're just letting him go free, for no reason! Are you insane?"

The judge did not meet Connie's gaze. "Ms. Rubirosa, I've made my ruling. Another outburst like that and I'll find you in contempt of court." Her voice sounded hollow.

"I'm sorry, your Honor," Connie said, although she wasn't. She would have argued more, despite the threat, but she had a better idea. Jack knew Judge Ross, she'd used to be his assistant. There had to be a reason she was letting a dangerous predator walk out of the courtroom, and Jack could find out what it was.

TBC

_Okay, I hope you like it. Even if you like Jamie, read on anyway, because it might not be quite what you think. I know what's going to happen next, I just need to figure out how to have it come together the way its supposed to, but I should have the next chapter up soon. Please review! Oh, and I think Munch will be in the next chapter, or if not then in the one after that._


	14. Text Message

_I still don't own Law & Order_.

Jack stormed into Jamie's chambers. Without so much as a greeting, he demanded, "Why did you release Henry Neal?"

Jamie was standing behind her desk, her face towards the wall. She didn't turn around to face him, but said quietly, "I was hoping you'd come."

That was unexpected enough to throw Jack off guard. "Why?" he asked, not angrily but truly curious. He stepped around the desk, trying to see Jamie's face, but she turned away.

"I can't go to the police," she told him. Jack wasn't sure whether it was a non sequitur or the answer to his question.

"About what, Jamie?" Jack asked, annoyance with all the evasions piling on top of his anger over the release of Henry Neal. First Claire, now Jamie… Couldn't anyone just give him some straight answers?

She turned, still not quite facing him, her face hidden by shadow. She was holding something, clenching it so hard her knuckles were white. It was a cell phone, Jack realized as she flipped it open, fiddled with the keys with trembling fingers, and, still not facing him, thrust it into his hands.

On the phone's screen was a text message, or rather, a picture message. It showed a terrified teenage girl tied to a chair, a gun to her head. It was Jamie's daughter.

Jack looked at Jamie, but she was still turned away so he couldn't see her expression. He wondered what she didn't want him to see in her face, whether it was tears, or just pain and fear in her eyes.

He focused on the phone again, realized that the message was more than just the picture and figured out which buttons to press to scroll down. Beneath the picture was a text message:

Release Henry Neal no bail if u don't u know what will happen 2 your daughter. If u tell the cops u will find pieces of her body.

Jack didn't know what to say to Jamie. He understood why she'd released Henry Neal, and he didn't even blame her, really. He just hoped that what she'd done had been the right thing- she'd done what they'd asked, and it didn't seem as if she had her daughter back.

Jamie was thinking the same thing, for she said, her voice bitter and filled with shame and fear, her face still hidden by the shadow, "I think I was wrong."

TBC

_Does anyone know Jamies daughter's name or how old she would be, or was whenever she was last mentioned? I'm guessing about late teens, but I don't know if it said her age, and if it did I can't remember. Oh, and Munch will be in it within a few chapters._

_Thank you everyone who is still reading and please review!_


	15. Surveillance

_Merry Christmas and happy holidays! _

_I still don't own Law & Order._

"How is it that we're the ones doing this?" Detective John Munch complained to his partner as they surreptitiously watched the house from their unmarked squad car. "I mean, this should have been a Special Victims case in the first place, but somehow homicide picke it up, which happens, and its not like we don't have enough to do. But if they're going to take the case, why can't they watch the suspect when some idiotic judge lets him out on bail?"

Finn shrugged, ignoring his partner's rant, he was used to it.

"The judge didn't even grant him bail, she RORed him," Munch continued. "Why would any judge release a violent, repeat child murderer? He must have powerful friends or be slipping Judge Ross something under the table."

Again, Finn ignored is partner, he was used to Munch's conspiracy theories. In his opinion, people did crazy things for no reason all the time, there was no need to look for conspiracies to explain away the judge's actions.

Munch theorized on, and Finn continued to ignore him, for about half an hour. Then the door of the house they were watching opened and Henry Neal came out, locked the door, and began to walk down the street.

The detectives followed. The man walked at a brisk pace, but several times he would turn down one street, look around, and turn around and go back, not as if he thought he was being followed but as if he was not quite sure where he was going. Which seemed to be the case, since several times he stopped and said something to other pedestrians, apparently asking for directions.

He walked for about forty-five minutes. It would have been far easier to take the subway to his destination, and it seemed that several of the people who gave him directions told him so, gesturing towards subway entrances, but each time he vehemently refused.

Finally he turned down a street with an air of confidence as if he had finally found his destination. Until, that is, he stopped in front of an enormous pile of rubble, the site of a destructive and ill controlled demolition. He stood on the sidewalk in front of it, staring at the place where a building had previously been.

"I know where we are!" Munch announced suddenly. "That was Jack McCoy's home."

"What the hell is he doing there? You'd think McCoy would be the last person he'd want to see."

Munch started to say something, but Finn was spared whatever conspiracy he was about to spout, because after standing staring at the ruins of the building for about thirty seconds, Neal suddenly turned and ran.

He cut across the street and between some buildings, making it impossible for Munch and Finn to follow in the car, so they jumped out and ran after him.

He wasn't very fast, and they caught him in less than a block, next to some dumpsters in a back alley. Finn shoved him against a wall.

"What were you doing there?" Munch demanded.

"Please, no, I just wanted to talk to the guy. I didn't know they'd gotten to him first. Please, don't kill me!"

Munch's paranoia was sparked by the man's words. "They've gotten to him? Who's they?" he demanded.

"They're going to kill me! I'm not that important to them, they wouldn't have gotten me out of jail if they weren't going to kill me. I just wanted to talk to the prosecutor, tell him what little I know and see if he could get me protection. I swear, I wasn't going to hurt anyone!"

"Like Jennifer Flores?" Finn demanded angrily.

"That was an accident! I loved Jennifer, I didn't mean to kill her. And then the next day I got the call saying that if I didn't kidnap that other girl, the guy would tell the cops about Jennifer. I wasn't even going to do anything with her, I was just supposed to bring her to them. Only she got away. And then the next day I saw that other girl, and she looked just like Jennifer, and I was really stressed, and, well, yeah… Look, I have problems, okay?"

"You're a sick pervert," Finn told him disgustedly.

Munch shot his partner a look. Of course he was perverted, but something more than that was clearly up. This wasn't just a pedophile kidnapping little girls, at least one of the cases was someone _hiring_ a pedophile to kidnap a little girl. "If you let us take you in, we'll let you talk to McCoy. You can see if he'll work out a deal with you."

"You mean he's not… in there…" Neal glanced back in the direction of the rubble that had been the prosecutor's house.

"No, he wasn't home when it blew up," Munch said, wondering immediately whether he should have provided this criminal with that bit of information. Well, it had been on the news, he could have found out anyway.

"Okay," the criminal agreed. "But I need to talk to him right away. I'm out on bail and I didn't violate it or nothing so you can't arrest me and send me back to jail, I'm just going with you so I can talk to McCoy, okay?"

Finn and Munch glanced at each other. They could have arrested him, of course, for something, anything, but it seemed pointless. He was already under indictment for murder and kidnapping, and he was coming with them voluntarily. And since he'd confessed, they should be able to get a judge to reconsider bail. "That's fine," Munch told the criminal. "We'll take you there right now."

TBC

_Please review. Oh, and thank you to everyone who reviewed so far, and thanks to stsgirlie for the information about Jamie's daughter._


	16. Informant

_I don't own Law & Order. Sorry it's taken me so long to update this._

"Jack's not in," Connie told the Special Victims detectives when they arrived at the district attorneys' office and asked for him. "He's taking the day off since his house was blown up. He came in for a little while to talk to Judge Ross, but he went home again. Why did you bring him here?" she indicated Henry Neal. "If he skipped bail, you can just arrest him."

"I didn't skip bail," the criminal told her indignantly. "I need to talk to McCoy."

"I'm sorry, but he's not in today. I work with him, is there something I can help you with?"

"No. I need to see him."

"You can try coming back tomorrow," Connie suggested, wondering why he wanted to talk to Jack. He probably wanted to make a deal, she thought, but then why wouldn't he talk to her?

"I'll probably be dead by then!" he insisted. "Can't you call him or something? It really is an emergency."

Connie looked at the detectives. "He'd want to know this," Munch told her. "It might even have to do with his house being blown up."

"Fine. I'll call him."

Jack hung up the phone. "Henry Neal, the man who tried to kidnap Jackie, wants to talk to me."

"About what?"

"He won't say. The police followed him to my house."

"Do they think he blew it up?"

"I don't know. I'll find out when I go in."

"I'll see you later," Claire said. The words sent a trill of trepidation through him. Probably she would see him later- he'd go, hear whatever Neal had to say to him, and come back. But the way she said them, casually, as if there was no doubt that they would see each other in a couple of hours, as if the world was normal… The world was not normal, and if things kept going the way they had been for the past- was it only a day? He wouldn't be particularly surprised to step out the door and fall through a rabbit hole into Wonderland.

He didn't voice his feelings though, just said, "See you later," and gave Claire a quick kiss. Jackie clapped.

He was halfway out the door when Jackie asked, "Can I come with you?"

"No. I'm going to talk to a murderer."

"Please?"

"Maybe another time," he told her, and left.

Connie, Detectives Munch and Finn, and Henry Neal were in Jack's office when he got there.

"So you really are alive," the criminal exclaimed.

"Why did you think I wasn't?"

"Your house is- gone. I went there to talk to you. Then these detectives told me you were alive, but I thought maybe they were just trying to trick me so they could kill me. You know, if they worked for _them_."

"It's not as paranoid as it sounds," said Detective Munch, although considering his reputation as a conspiracy theorist, Jack wasn't sure what to think, or rather, he wouldn't have been had he not already had some knowledge of the "_them_" that Neal was probably referring to.

"What was it you wanted to say to me?" Jack asked him.

He looked around nervously "Could we talk in private?"

"No."

"Fine. See, I have a problem, I admit that. So anyway, last time I was convicted, it was for being a Peeping Tom in this little girl's window. And the judge, he let me loose, not parole or anything, jut dismissed the case, even though they had a good case against me and everything. I didn't ask why or anything, I was just happy I wasn't going to have to go to jail. So anyway, then I killed Jennifer, it was an accident, really, I mean, I know that doesn't make it okay but I just want you to know that. So then the next day I got this call. The guy said his name was Sam, he said his boss had a job for me, I had to kidnap this other girl, not hurt her or anything, just bring her to him. And I didn't really wan to, I was feeling real bad about Jenny still, but he said if I didn't he'd tell the cops that I'd killed Jenny and this time the Judge Seinner would give me life, and I'm like, no he won't, since he hadn't last time and all, and the guy's like, yes he will, he's a friend of my boss, and if you go to the cops or anything about this, lots of them are in this too, and so are lots of other people, so just do what I say, grab the girl, and call me, and he gave me a number. So I tried, but she got away. And then I called the number the guy gave me, and he said to meet him on the subway and gave me all this cloak and dagger instructions and crap, so I did, and a couple guys were in the subway car, and they said a lot of stuff that really scared me, like basically there's this group of criminals, only they're mainly not criminals, they're like judges and cops and politicians and rich people and stuff, and they hired me to do this, and they tried to hire me to kill you only I said hell no and ran, and then I got out on bail so easy, that lady judge, she's part of it, ad they're gonna kill me!"

TBC

_Please review._


	17. Kidnapping Continued

_Disclaimer: I still don't own Law & Order._

_Sorry it's been so long since I updated this one, I've been really busy and was also a little stuck. _

Henry Neal agreed to allow his bail to be revoked if he was put in protective custody, and Jack made the arrangements. He then called the hotel room to tell Claire.

Jackie answered the phone with a joyful, "Hi, Dad!" and told him that Claire had went across the street to get something for dinner but would be back soon. "So did you talk to the guy who tried to kidnap me? What did he say?"

Jack thought about what to tell her, and decided that she'd seen enough in her life to make it pointless to tell her anything other than the truth. "He said he was told to kidnap you by someone connected to a judge. But he confessed, and agreed to go back to jail."

Jackie was completely unperturbed. "Okay, that's good. I'll tell mom when she gets back. See you later."

After hanging up, Jack realized that he should tell Jamie, and find out if she had heard anything more, so he called her.

"Jamie Ross." She had been crying.

"It's Jack. Henry Neal-"

"Don't tell me over the phone," she interrupted. "Where are you now?"

"At my office."

"I'll meet you there." She hung up.

A very disheveled Jamie arrived at his office a few minutes later. Her face was expressionless, but dark rivulets of mascara ran down her cheeks.

She listened in silence as Jack told her what Henry Neal had said. When he was done, she asked slowly, "Who else knows?"

He was a bit surprised by the question, but answered anyway. "Connie, Detectives Munch and Finn… I made arrangements for him to be put in protective custody, but I didn't explain the details."

"That's good," Jamie said, but she looked concerned. Abruptly, she got up and headed to the door. "I have to go."

"Wait," Jack said. She turned around. "You didn't want to talk over the phone, you're scared of something- what's going on, Jamie?"

She hesitated, then sat down again. "After you left, I called he police," she began, then stopped.

Jack said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

Finally, she did. "I told an officer what happened. He… he said that he knew, told me that I wasn't supposed to call the police, that I was lucky this time but if I told anyone else, they'd..." She couldn't bring herself to say it, but Jack knew what she meant.

"A police officer told you that?" Jack asked, horrified.

Jamie nodded. "Then a few minutes later I got this." She showed him her phone. On it was another picture message, still of Katie tied to a chair with a gun to her head, but in this one she was naked and covered with bruises. Below the picture were the words: That's what u get 4 disobeying us.

"Did you get his name- the cop?" Jack asked finally.

"No, he didn't tell me."

They sat in silence for a minute before Jack spoke."A judge hired Neal to kidnap-" to kidnap my daughter, he almost said, but caught himself- "someone; a cop is involved with kidnapping Katie." Everything else Claire had told him about the conspiracy of "bad guys" who was after her and Jackie flashed through his mind, but he didn't voice it. "Jamie, obviously you can't call the police, but do you think maybe you should tell someone- Anita Van Buren, someone else in the police you can trust? They can't all be involved."

"No," she answered instantly, then thought about it, then said again, "No. The less people who know the better. I haven't even- Jack, I haven't even told Neil Gorton."

"You don't think he's involved?"

"No," Jamie answered, but she didn't really sound convinced. "No, I don't. I just- I can't trust anyone about it now."

The door swung open and Jack and Jamie both jumped as Connie entered the room. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No," they said simultaneously.

"I just got a call from the jail. Henry Neal's dead."

TBC

_Please review._


	18. Interrogation, Sort Of

_I don't own Law & Order, or SVU._

_Ths chapter is for EnforcerAndAccuserFan, who's been telling me to bring Munch in since the beginnng._

Connie told them the details- Neal had been shanked in the showers, nobody saw nothing, big surprise. Jamie left, and Jack sat there, pondering what had happened and what would happen now.

He was about to leave when the door opened and Detective Munch came inside, and without invitation, sat down. "You've heard about Neal?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Counselor, we need to talk to the girl he tried to kidnap, Jackie Clark. Homicide says you know where to find her."

"No," Jack said, not a denial that he knew her location but a refusal to let them talk to her.

"He was hired to kidnap her. Maybe she knows why."

"No." If he let them talk to Jackie, it would only put more people in more danger.

"I don't know what's going on or why you're hiding it, but I will find out," Munch said almost threateningly.

"What makes you think anything's going on?"

"Your house was bombed, someone hired a pedophile to kidnap a little girl you know, a judge who used to be your assistant released the pedophile without bail, he then goes to the remains of your house and babbles about people in high places being out to get him, and is killed. Do you honestly expect me to believe nothing's going on?"

Good point, Jack thought sardonically, but told Munch only, "I'll get Jackie and you can talk to her here."

"Fine," Munch agreed.

………………………………...

Claire was unsure about the idea of letting Jackie talk to the police again, but they discussed it and agreed that if they didn't, Munch could investigate the wrong things and put himself and them in danger. And Munch didn't know Claire, so wouldn't recognize Jackie. Jackie was absolutely exuberant at getting to go to her dad's office and talk to the detective.

"Hi, I'm Detective Munch," Munch told Jackie when she arrived in Jack's office.

"I'm Jackie," she told him.

"I want to talk to her alone," Munch told Jack when the prosecutor showed no signs of leaving.

Jack started to argue, but thought better of it. Jackie could handle being questioned by herself, and Munch was already suspicious enough, so he left.

Munch turned to Jackie. "I want to ask you some more questions about what happened earlier, okay?"

"Sure," agreed Jackie cheerfully.

"Could you go over the whole thing again so I can hear it from you?"

"I was walking with my friends, we were going to Ana's house to see her new puppies, and this white van drove up, and the guy grabbed me, and my friends ran away, and I bit the guy's hand, it was over my mouth, so he let go of me with that hand, and I twisted away and kicked him in the balls and ran away, and then ran back to school and the secretary called the police, and they took me to the police station, and I told them what happened."

Munch nodded. That fit with the details in the police report, and he believed that part of her story. Now to the hard part. "Jackie, when you went back to school, why didn't the secretary call your parents?"

"She didn't have the phone number. I just moved here, that was my first day at school, and I guess when my mom signed me up she gave them the old phone number. And I didn't know the new one yet."

"And you told the other detectives you didn't know your mom's name?"

"I guess I didn't remember because I'd been so scared from almost being kidnapped and everything," Jackie said innocently.

Munch didn't buy it for a second. She'd been able to tell them quite clearly the details of what had happened, but the trauma of the event had made her forget her mom's name? Yeah, right.

"Well, now that you're over being scared, what is your mom's name?"

"Elizabeth," said Jackie, randomly thinking of a name. Claire had been Elizabeth once, a few years ago.

"Elizabeth Clark?" Munch asked.

"Right," Jackie confirmed.

Munch wrote it down, planning to check it out later, though he doubted it was true.

"And how do you know Mr. McCoy?"

"He's my mom's friend," Jackie told him. That part even was true.

"You said you just moved here, right? Where did you live before that?"

"Uh… Montana," Jackie told him.

"What was your address?"

Jackie rattled off an address so easily that Munch almost believed her. She had actually lived in Montana once, only a few months earlier, and the address she gave him had been the house of a friend she'd had when she lived there. Her friend had moved even before she did, though, so if anyone checked the address, nothing would tie it to her.

"And where are you living now?"

"We're staying in a hotel right now. I can't remember what it's called."

"And you don't know the phone number?"

"Nope."

"Then how did you tell your mom that you were going to a friend's house after school? You just met your friends that day, right?"

"Uh, used my friend's phone and called 411, and asked for the hotel right near my school, because I knew where it was, and they connected me and I knew we were n room 205, so I dialed 205 for the extension, and my mom answered."

"So, why didn't you do that again when your school and the police were trying to contact your parents?"

"I guess I forgot."

Munch changed tactics. "Jackie, do you know why anyone would want to kidnap you?"

"No, sorry."

"Is there anyone who has a grudge against ether of your parents?"

How little you know, Jackie thought, but said, "No. At least not my mom. I don't know anything about my dad."

"What does your mom do?"

"Well, before we moved she worked at a grocery store, but now she doesn't have a job yet."

"Why did you move?"

"I don't know. My mom wanted to."

It was a reasonable answer, but Munch didn't believe her. He couldn't put hs finger on it, but the way she said it somehow made it seem like a lie.

He thought for a minute, then asked, "If you just moved here, how does your mom know Jack McCoy?"

"I guess they used to know each other," Jackie said. "You could ask him."

"I'd really like to talk to your mom," Munch told her. "Do you know how I can contact her?"

"Uh, you could call the hotel. Or you could ask m-" she almost said, my dad, but quickly changed it to, "Mr. McCoy."

"Okay," Munch said. He was even more suspicious now that he'd talked to Jackie. "Thanks for talking to me."

Jack was in Connie's office, talking to her about some case. "Are you ready to go?" Jackie asked.

"Sure." He said something to Connie, and joined Jackie and Munch in the hallway.

"I want to talk to her mom," Munch said.

"No," Jack refused firmly.

"There has to be a reason someone hired Neal to have her kidnapped, and I want to find out what it is. I'd think you would, too. I don't understand why you're being so obstructive about this."

Jack ignored him. "Come on, Jackie, let's go," he said, and they left.

Munch was very careful not to be seen as he followed them.

TBC

_Please review._


	19. Conspiracy

_I still don't own Law & Order._

_Okay, sorry it's been so long since I've updated this one, I was sort-of stuck on it but I think I know where it's going now. well, I know where it's going, since I've already written the last chapter, and I'm pretty sure how I'm going to get there. The case I mention in this chapter is made up, not from any episode. I sort-of reference Law & Order: Trial By Jury when I mention Tracey Kibre was the prosecutor, but it's not going to be important to the story, so don't worry if you never watched that._

Munch followed them back to the hotel, but didn't go inside- he already knew the room number, and if he barged in, they'd just refuse to talk to him.

Instead, he was going to get to the bottom of whatever conspiracy was going on- because he knew there _was_ some kind of conspiracy going on.

He went back to the one-six precinct and ran a trace on the number that Henry Neal had given them belonging to "Sam." It came back to a prepaid cell-phone. A dead end. Or maybe not.

Munch called Casey, and asked her to get a warrant to get the records for the number- there was plenty of probable cause in what Henry Neal had told him. An hour later, he was sitting at his desk with the phone records, carefully examining each number that had called or been called.

He eliminated about half the numbers as belonging to restaurants or stores, then began going through the rest, putting a name to each number. Most of the names meant nothing to him, and it was getting late, in the morning he'd either call, or preferably, go talk to in person, all the people on the list.

Then he came across a name that did mean something to him: David Boyles. The name had been splayed across the news for weeks a few months ago, though by now the media frenzy surrounding him had died down. Boyles had been a juror, one of the jurors that had convicted a woman named Eileen Fox of murdering her two year old daughter. That wasn't why Boyles name had been in the news, though. After Fox had been convicted, she'd appealed, claiming jury tampering. The appeal was ongoing, and it was never made public which juror had allegedly been tampered with. But Boyles' body had been found on the subway tracks. The case was still open, and whether he had fallen, jumped, or been pushed, was anybody's guess.

Munch, of course, believed Boyles had been pushed.

He quickly looked up the details of the Fox case. It had been presided over by a Judge Ralph Boxwell, the prosecutor had been Tracey Kibre, and the defense attorney, who had represented Ms. Fox at trial and was currently representing her on appeal, was Danielle Melnick.

TBC

_Sorry this is so short, I didn't mean to end the chapter here but the weekend is over and I don't know when I'll have time to write more, so I'll just post this now, despite its length. Please review._


	20. Meeting

_So I did end up just rewriting the part I lost, or at least what I had of this chapter, the second to last chapter is still lost (the last chapter is too but I have it on paper), not that that's next, there's still a bunch of chapters before the end, but I already had it written. But anyway, here this is, and I'm probably going to work on the next chapter now, I had written the first few paragrpahs and I remember it. So I'll probably have it up this weekend._

_I don't own Law & Order._

Munch sat staring at the computer screen, trying to figure out what to do. It was connected, obviously. Eileen Fox was appealing her conviction alleging jury tampering, one of the jurors on her case had been killed, and now that juror's phone number had been called by the same person who had ordered Henry Neal to kidnap Jackie.

The question was what to do now. Henry Neal was dead. Boyles, the juror, was dead. He knew Kibre, the prosecutor on the Fox case, slightly, but not well enough to be sure she wasn't involved- after all, there obviously had been jury tampering, and she was the one who benefited. And if she was involved, he wanted more solid information before confronting her. And since according to Henry Neal, there was at least one judge involved with the whole thing, he wasn't going to talk to the judge.

That left Danielle Melnick, so he looked up her phone number and called her, hoping she was still in her office.

She was. "Hello, this is Danielle Melnick."

"Ms. Melnick, this is Detective John Munch from the Special Victims Unit. I have some questions for you about the Fox case?"

"I'm sorry, Detective, but the case is still ongoing and anything I know about it is privileged."

Munch thought about telling her what he had learned, but didn't want to give the defense any more ammunition until he knew more, so he said rather sarcastically, "Thank you for your time," and hung up.

Finally, Munch decided to tell Jack McCoy what he had learned and hope he could get something out of Melnick. He was hesitant about talking to McCoy, considering his reluctance to provide any information that almost amounted to obstruction, but he didn't really think the prosecutor was involved with whatever was going on. McCoy just didn't seem like the type, and anyway, why would he blow up his own house?

Munch tried calling McCoy's office, but he wasn't there, and Munch didn't have any other way of contacting him. But he knew where he might be staying, and anyway, he wanted a chance to see exactly who was in that hotel room.

About half an hour later he was standing in front of room 205. He knocked on the door, and waited. He was just beginning to think that no one was there, or whoever was there was pretending not to be, when the door opened.

To Munch's surprise, the person behind the door was Lieutenant Anita Van Buren.

Munch stared at her for a second, then said awkwardly, "I'm looking for Jack McCoy…"

Van Buren looked him over before letting him in. Inside the room, McCoy was seated on one of the beds with a woman who was clearly Jackie's mother, and Jackie was sitting on the other bed. A chair was pulled up facing the beds, where Lieutenant Van Buren had obviously been sitting. They appeared to have been deep in a serious discussion. When Jackie saw Munch, she whispered something to her mom.

The woman nodded and said to Munch, "I'm Elizabeth Clark, Jackie's mom."

McCoy glanced at her for just an instant, but in a way that somehow made Munch wonder if that was her real name.

"Do you want to ask me more questions?" Jackie asked him.

He shook his head, and said, mainly to McCoy, "I might have more information on the man who hired Henry Neal."

"We were just discussing that," McCoy said. "Why don't you sit down."

Munch pulled up the room's other chair and sat next to Van Buren. "Do you remember the Fox case?" he asked the room in general.

"I do," said Van Buren, and McCoy nodded in agreement, but the other woman- Elizabeth Clark?- looked blank, and Jackie said, "I don't. What was it?"  
"A woman named Eileen Fox was convicted of murdering her daughter," Munch said.

"Wasn't there something about one of the jurors, later?" asked Van Buren.

"The defense appealed, alleging jury tampering, and soon after one of the jurors, David Boyles, was found dead."

Elizabeth Clark's face went pale, and Jackie whispered something to her. "What is it?" Munch asked her.

"Nothing," she said unconvincingly.

He tried Jackie. "Do you recognize the name?"

"Me? No, I don't think so. I could have seen it on the news or something, I wouldn't remember," she said.

Like hell you wouldn't, thought Munch.

"How is any of that connected to Henry Neal?" asked McCoy.

"I ran a trace on the number Neal gave us. It was a prepaid cell-phone, but one of the other numbers in the phone record was Boyles's."

They all seemed to consider that. "Could I get a copy of the phone records?" asked Elizabeth.

"Why? You wouldn't recognize any names anyway," Munch said acidly.

She looked away, but said, "Maybe if I see the names something will pop out at me. I thought you were hoping there was some connection to me, anyway, to explain why Jackie was kidnapped."

"Is there anyone who might want to kidnap your daughter? Do you have any enemies?"

"No." But Munch was absolutely certain it was not true.

Even so, he asked, "What about Jackie's father? Is there anyone who would want to hurt him, or could he be involved?"

"No," she answered, more firmly.

"Detective Munch, this line of questioning is going nowhere." To Munch's surprise, Anita Van Buren cut him off. "But we should look into the connection with the Fox case. What else did you learn about it?"

"I haven't found out much else so far. We don't know who's in on it and I don't want to tip them off too early. I did call Fox's attorney, but she wouldn't talk to me."

"Who's representing her?" asked McCoy.

"Danielle Melnick."

"Do you think she's involved?" Van Buren asked.

"No," said McCoy.

"I don't know," said Van Buren. "Wasn't she almost indicted as an accessory to murder a few years ago, for helping a client to commit a murder from prison?"

"She was tricked into that, and there is no way Danielle's involved with this," McCoy protested. "Anyway, what would she have to gain? Her client was convicted. I'll talk to her and find out her side of the story."

TBC

_Please review._


	21. Evidence

_I don't own Law & Order._

Danielle Melnick was still at her office when Jack arrived. "Jack! What are you doing here?"  
"I need to talk to you about the Fox case."

Her face hardened. "As I told the detective who called me earlier, that case is ongoing and I can't talk about it."

"Danielle, I might have some evidence that could help your case."

"Oh?"

"First tell me about the case. Why do you think there was jury tampering?"

She hesitated. "This better be good," she said, and began to rummage through a cardboard box labeled FOX- APPEAL. She pulled out a video-tape and popped it into a small TV mounted on the wall.

After a moment, a grainy black and white image of a corner of a hallway in the courthouse appeared on the screen. For just over a minute, the hall was empty but for a few people passing through without stopping. Then a slightly overweight man walked on screen and began to look around nervously.

"David Boyles," said Danielle, her voice indicating her distaste.

On the screen, Boyles continued to look around nervously. He seemed about to leave when a tall, white-haired man in a judge's robe came on screen, glanced around quickly, and approached Boyles.

"The _honorable_ Judge Ralph Boxwell." If Danielle felt distaste for the juror, she loathed the judge. The word "honorable" was so heavily laden with sarcasm she could have been referring to a slug, or worse.

The two men on the screen were talking, but the video had no sound. After a minute, Boyles nodded, and Judge Boxwell took out a wallet and counted out several bills. The denomination could not be seen on the tape, but the jurors excited expression made it clear that he had just been handed a great deal of money.

Danielle ejected the tape and put it back in the box. "You can see why I have grounds for appeal," she said to Jack.

"You're saying the judge paid off a juror."

"You don't seem surprised," she noted.

"It's been a long week," he said, though it hadn't really even been a week, and that wasn't really an answer anyway.

"So what do you have for me?"

"It's not as good as that tape, but it could be helpful. Boyles was in the phone records of a man who hired Henry Neal- a pedophile- to kidnap m- a nine-year old girl."

Danielle furiously scribbled on a legal pad, and said, "Hmm. That could be helpful. What was the name of the man who talked to Boyles?"

"We don't know," Jack admitted. "It was a pre-paid cell phone."

Danielle nodded. "If you learn anything else, let me know," she told him.

"Sure," Jack agreed, though he didn't know whether he would. "Good luck on your appeal."

"Luck, Jack?" she chided.

"Not that you need it," he added hastily. He started to leave, then turned around in the doorway. "Danielle."

She was already sitting in her desk again, pen poised over a stack of papers, and she looked up in surprise at his voice.

"Be careful," he told her, and left.

TBC

_Please review._


	22. Lost and Found

Both Lieutenant Van Buren and Detective Munch were still in the hotel room when Jack got back. Van Buren was deep in conversation with Jackie, who had gotten over her fear of the Lieutenant, and Munch was trying to talk to, or question, Claire, who seemed annoyed with him."The judge in the Fox case bribed Boyles," Jack told them.

"Oh good!" said Jackie. "Can you go arrest him?" she asked Van Buren.

Anita turned to Jack. "Do you have any evidence?"

"It's on tape."

"I'll pick him up myself," she said. "Do you want to come?" she asked Munch.

"How could I miss out on that?"

"Can I come? Please?" asked Jackie eagerly.

"No," said Jack, so sharply that Munch glanced at him in surprise.

"Please, please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top?" Jackie begged.

Anita Van Buren whispered something to Jackie. "Oh, yeah," Jackie agreed reluctantly. "Good luck!"

The police left, and Claire and Jack put Jackie to bed, then went to bed themselves.

--

Although it was past one in the morning, Danielle Melnick was still in her office, preparing for a murder trial, or rather, a self-defense trial, scheduled to start that Monday. She finished picking apart the statement of the prosecution's surprise witness she'd only found out about that evening, and suddenly realized how late it was and that she hadn't eaten since lunch. She grabbed her purse and headed to a restaurant across the street, still wondering whether she was making a mistake in not calling the medical examiner, and what the hell had the prosecution's eyewitness been doing "reading his newspaper", outside, at eleven o'clock at night, in a bad part of town?

She ate slowly, still thinking about her case, so it was almost two by the time she was finished. As late as it was, she'd just gotten another idea for an exhibit, and decided to go back to her office for just a little while before heading home.

Her first clue that something was wrong was that the door was unlocked. She'd thought she'd locked it, she always did, this was New York, and with the kind of people she sometimes defended, it was safer to lock her doors. But it was late, and she was tired… She _could_ have forgotten.

So she felt no real apprehension as she opened the door and stepped into her office. The room was dark, as she had left it. She was just reaching to turn on the light when she heard a noise- a faint sound that could have been a gasp, or a muffled cry.

Danielle switched on the light, and now she was the one to gasp at what she saw. In the middle of the room was a folding chair. And in that chair, or rather, tied to it, was a teenage girl. She was naked and covered in bruise; her hands were tied behind her back, her legs bound together, and a gag was stuffed in her mouth. Attached to the rope around her chest tying her to the chair was a note.

She didn't look at it right away, of course. Only once she had untied and un-gagged the girl, made sure she was okay, talked to her, given her some clothes that she kept for clients who needed to look presentable for court, and was about to call the police, did she really notice it.

It was typed in the Edwardian Script font, and read, "Don't even consider calling the police. If you do, you will regret it. Just ask Katie's mother."

TBC

_Sorry it's been so long ,first my computer broke and I had to recover all my stuff, and then I've been so busy with school and AP tests (I had my history one today and my English one is next week). Hopefully I'll be able to update this, and my other stories, again soon. Oh, and the case I mention Danielle thinking on is based on my case from Youth & Government (The prosecution surprised us by suddenly springing thepolice officer on us the night before our trial, and the eyewitness claimed to have been reading the newspaper when he saw the killing, and I didn't call thge medical examiner because the testimony hurt my case more than it would have helped it and he was an incompetent hack anyway.) Anyway, please review._


	23. Story

_I don't own Law & Order._

The phone jerked Jack awake. "Hello?" he answered groggily.

"Jack?" He recognized the voice instantly, although the woman on the other end of the line sounded unnerved, an unusual state for her.

"Danielle?"

"Jack, I found Judge Ross's daughter."

The words swam through Jack's mind, but he didn't reply, because somehow he couldn't bring himself to ask whether Katie had been found alive. The silence dragged on, and he had to say something, so he finally asked, "Have you called the police?"

He'd assumed she had, of course, had meant it as the kind of question you ask as a matter of course but already know the answer to. So he was surprised by her response, by the heaviness of her voice as she said, "Jack, you need to come here."

"Why?"

"I haven't called the police."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"I'll tell you when you get here," she told him, and hung up before he could say anything else.

He was careful not to wake Claire or Jackie as he got up and left the room. He was at Danielle Melnick's office in less than twenty minutes.

Katie looked even worse than she had in the photo that had been sent to Jamie, and Danielle looked worried.

"You haven't called the police?" he asked her. He knew the answer, and it wasn't even really a question.

"No, and I'm not going to," Danielle told him. She started to say something else, then glanced at Katie and stopped.

"Have you called Jamie?" Jack asked.

"She's on her way here," Katie said. Her voice was lifeless.

"What happened?" Jack asked her.

She didn't look at him, but said, "I was at school. I got summoned to the office. A police officer was there. He said a criminal whose trial my mom was presiding over had threatened me and he was supposed to take me out of school. I… I went with him." Suddenly, she changed to the present tense, and Jack could tell she was reliving what had happened. He almost regretted asking, but he needed to know. He wished he hadn't had to ask, wished the whole thing had never happened.

"I think I'm drugged," Katie continued. "I wake up… I don't know where. I'm tied to a chair. There are three men, the policemen and two other men. They…" she trailed off, and glanced at Danielle Melnick.

"It's okay," the lawyer said comfortingly.

"They rape me," Katie said almost inaudibly. "I try to fight them and they beat me up, and then they… yeah. Then they tie me to the chair again and take pictures. Then they leave me there. I start screaming and they come back and give me a glass of water and tell me to drink it. I know it has drugs in it but I drink it anyway. They would make me if I don't, and at this point I'd rather be drugged. Everything is hazy, and then it begins to be clear again and I can tell it's later. They come back again and do the whole thing over again. I don't know how many times it happens. You said it's Saturday now?" she asked Danielle.



"Barely."

Katie nodded and continued. "The last time after they raped me and drugged me, when I woke up I was here, tied up to a chair here. They must have brought me here while I was drugged."

Danielle was just telling him how she'd found Katie when Jamie arrived. She didn't ask any questions, or say anything to Jack or Danielle, just put her arm around her daughter and took her home.

Once they'd left, Danielle said, "This is why I didn't call the police," and handed him a note. "It was tied to her when I found her. I want to ask Judge Ross about it, but that wasn't the time."

"They sent her the pictures," Jack told her.

"You knew about this?"

If he explained, he'd have to explain everything, so he just nodded. Danielle looked at him suspiciously but let it go.

"That's not all," she told him and handed him another note, typed in the same font. It read, "You should have known better than to incriminate a judge, bitch."

"They left it on my desk. This is related to my giving you the Boxwell video somehow. I don't know how it's connected yet, but that's the only thing they could be talking about."

Jack, who did know, said nothing.

She could tell, though. She looked at him through narrowed eyes, and asked, "Jack, what's this about?"

He wanted to tell her. They'd been friends for a long time, and despite their differences, he trusted her.

But it wasn't his secret to tell, so he said, "I'm sure you're right."

She looked at him with disappointment. He wanted to tell her to be careful, but if he'd said it then she would have resented it. So he left.

TBC

_I am almost done with this story, only one or two chapters left!_


	24. Deal with the Devil

_I don't own Law & Order_.

The next morning, or rather, later that morning, Jack told Claire what had happened. She listened silently, her face growing more- worried, scared, guilty?- with every word he spoke.

She didn't comment at all. After a few minutes, she said, "I have some things I need to do, can you take Jackie?"

"I need to go into work for a while today, but I could probably bring her, I don't have a trial or anything." Although it was Saturday, he had some things he needed to catch up on.

"Yes!! I want to go!!" Jackie cried, jumping out of bed excitedly. They'd thought she'd been asleep, but she'd either woken up or just been pretending to sleep so she could eavesdrop on them.

"Please, mom!" Jackie begged.

Claire considered, and agreed, "It should be okay."

Jackie was overjoyed.

ooooo

Once upon a time, Claire had been the naïve one. Well, maybe not naïve, but idealistic, believing that they could change the world for the better, believing in ideals, believing in justice. And Jack had been the one who said that it wasn't about justice.

But things had changed since then, everything had changed. He believed he could find the "bad guys" and put them in prison and everything would be okay and they could live happily ever after. She knew better.

It was her fault that that girl had been kidnapped and raped and tortured, and it could happen to someone else, could happen to Jackie. She had to do something, and putting the people who had done it behind bars would be useless.

This was the only thing she could do, she thought, as she picked up the phone to talk to the man sitting on the other side of the glass.

"I need to talk to your boss."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Judge Boxwell.

And yet, an hour later she stood in the chambers of another judge, a smarter one, who hadn't been caught and wasn't going to be.

"Seeing that you've spent the last ten years avoiding us, I'm not sure why you want to talk to me," he said slowly.

"I give up," Claire told him simply.  
He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I'll forget about all this and get on with my life."

He looked at her skeptically. "Forget it until your allies sweep us up, maybe."

"No. We both know they can't. They think they can, but they're wrong, and I don't want to anyone else to be hurt because of me."

"Why should I believe you?"

She told him her plans. He nodded, and she slipped away.

ooooo



Jackie had a great time going to work with Jack, and he'd enjoyed being with her. Although he'd only known her for a few days, they were closer than he ever had been with his other daughter, almost as close as if he'd known her since she was born.

Claire was back at the hotel room before they were. The three of them decided to go out for dinner,and went to a nearby Italian restaurant. They talked and laughed and seemed like any other family. Claire seemed a little distracted, but with everything that had been happening, that was only normal. Besides for that, it was as if they all lived a normal, happy life together, and no one was trying to kill any of them.

Later, as they went to sleep, Jack thought, _This is what our life should be like._

TBC

_Please review. Only one more chapter, and I already have it written._


	25. Note

_I don't own Law & Order._

When Jack woke up the next morning, the bed next to him, where Claire had been when they'd fallen asleep, was empty.

At first, as he slowly became awake, he thought nothing of it, even when neither Claire nor Jackie was in the hotel room. They could have gone out somewhere.

It was only when he found that the bed wasn't empty that he began to worry.

Where Claire had been the night before was a single sheet of paper.

Dear Jack,  
I'm sorry, Jack, but I have to disappear again. I know you think you can stop them, but you can't. If I stay here it will only lead to more deaths. Maybe I never should have come back, but despite everything I'm glad I got to see you again, and that you got to meet Jackie. I don't want to leave, but I have to. Please don't try to find us. And Jack, as much as this goes against your instincts, please don't keep after them. I don't want you to get hurt. I want to say more, but I don't know what else to write, except that I love you.  
Love,  
Claire

Below that, even more heartbreakingly, was another note, scrawled in the handwriting of a child:

Daddy,  
I love you! I wish we could stay with you forever but mom says we have to leave. I'm glad I got to know you.  
Love, Jackie.

Jack stared at the letter with a frozen mind, unable to take in the full meaning of it. Next to Jackie's name was a tiny arrow pointing off the page, so he turned the paper over, and sure enough, her note was continued on the back.

In tiny letters, Jackie had written: P.S. I promise I'll see you again!

The End

_I hope you don't hate me too much for this ending. I've been planning it since the beginning, and I know it leaves everything unfinished but it just fits._

_Please review._


End file.
